Tuesday, March 28, 2017

8 of 40: ha ha tonka state park trails

Devil's Kitchen Trail

Devil's Kitchen Trail (Devil's Promenade)

Devil's Kitchen Trail (Devil's Promenade)

Devil's Kitchen Trail

Last weekend we took a day trip to the Lake of the Ozarks to hike at Ha Ha Tonka State Park. Many years ago Jesse had hiked there and camped overnight on the trail. This park has been on our list for some time, and our trip was with the intent to hike 4 trials, all connected, and were hopeful for some great views. We were not disappointed!

We drove down in the morning and started on the hike around 11am. Having all day we were not in a hurry and wanted to enjoy ourselves. The Devil's Kitchen Trail, Island Trail and Colosseum Trail provided rough, rocky hiking and amazing views of dolomite. It was fun for the kids, especially Roone, to climb this. The Spring Trail was perfect for a naturalist, which is more Ella's area of interest. We took time to eat lunch with a view of the lake from this trail and after our hike on the Island Trail as we continued on the Spring Trial, we had time to stop and observe a number of wood ducks, a Kingfisher, a bat (there are a couple of caves nearby) and about 50 turtles sunbathing.

This state park is popular for having castle ruins on site that you can walk through, but it wasn't actually our priority to make it there so we just had a view from across the lake. The park is close to the lake community so it was heavy populated on the day we were there. The trails are very accessible, so there were a lot of casual walkers. The accessibility is great, however there is a lot of damage to the trails (many signs were posted) because visitors don't stay on the trial (which we, unfortunately, observed).

Our mileage at 3.3 miles in 4 hours is deceiving! As I said it was a rough, rocky hiking, but we really enjoy that as it adds so much interest to a trail. The 300+ stairs on the Spring Trail we could have without, but of course they serve their purpose. It was also a warm day getting into the lower 70's with sunshine, so we were hot by the end of our hike, which we don't prefer, of course! All in all, though, our time at Ha Ha Tonka was most enjoyable and highly recommend these trails.

Spring Trail

Spring Trail

Spring Trail

Spring Trail (with a view of the island)

Spring Trail (castle ruins)

(we actually ascended the 316 steps since we came from the other side of the trial)